Varanasi

Varanasi is the oldest continuously lived-in city on earth and it will either be the best three days of your trip or the worst, with very little in between. Take a boat at dawn, not at sunset. At first light the ghats are working — people bathing, washing, praying, exercising — and the boat is quiet. The evening Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh is a genuine spectacle but you will watch it shoulder to shoulder with several hundred phones. At Manikarnika, bodies burn around the clock and have done for centuries. You can stand and watch; it is not hidden and nobody will stop you. Do not photograph it, and do not pay the men who offer to take you closer for a donation to the wood. Both requests are as old as the ghat. The galis behind the river are the actual city. They are too narrow for cars, you will get lost, and getting lost is the point — but keep the river to one side in your head so you can always walk back to it. Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon, is forty minutes away and a complete change of pace. Go on the day Varanasi has worn you out.